Sunday Stash - Low volume

 

I saw a fabric bundle pop up on Instagram two weeks ago. A quick message to Simply Solids and then to Kim who was at the Malvern quilt show and it was purchased. Imagine my surprise when it came in its own little bag.

 

 

A lovely fat quarter bundle of low value creams and whites. Bought with the My Small world quiltalong in mind. I asked Kim to buy it for me so I would save the postage charge and then they had a free post weekend. Sigh, never mind. I swapped Kim some Kaffe fabric scraps for my bundle, sow e were both delighted.

And here's a close up of spots, hounds tooth, cotton and steel and more. Theya re already put away in my low volume basket IN THE CUPBOARD.


Linking to:

Farm Girl Friday - Churn Dash and Cool threads

Week 5 already and I now have ten blocks as I made two can blocks last week. This week is the traditional churn dash as well as cotton reels. I made the cotton reels as a 12" block but I've just realised that I can unpick them into four 6" blocks if I end up with too few smaller blocks.

The cotton reels is a mix of some of my favourite prints - Pearl bracelets, bike tracks, flurry and others I don't know the names of by Katy Jones and V & Co.

This is a 6" block on a Carolyn Freidlander background with some Moda dots and Cotton & Steel. I really like this block, it's turned out well.

And my blocks so far. I think I've got a good spread of colours so far, but need to make another 6" block next week.

A productive bank holiday weekend

Two customer quilts finished, trimmed and ready for collection. Today I plan to get my Siblings Together quilt back on the machine and install the closed foot so that I can use rulers more accurately. I have asked my husband to spare me an hour to help as there are 16 steps to be followed. I bet I'll be the one shimmying under the machine to turn the hand wheel. At least I'm out of reach there if it goes wrong.

 

I used a pantograph by Anne Bright called Hickory Park to quilt this using a white thread so that the quilting doesn't dominate the pretty quilt.

This is the Fat Quarter Shop BOM for 2014 called Wishes. Val has used Ruby by Bonnie & Camille for the most part. So fresh and I love the grass green essential dot that she used for the backing.

Ribbon Box Quilt

 
This is a quilt that I've just finished for a customer. I love the striking simplicity of the pattern. I asked on Instagram what the name of the fabric is and was told it is Grey Abbey by Elizabeth Olwen for Cloud9 fabrics. And the pattern appears on the Cloud9 website too for free. I was interested in the fabric as there were some nice motifs that could be modified to make a quilting pattern. I am going on a course in July to learn how to use Art & stitch so I need to go with some inspiration so I don't sit there like a lemon.

 

Here's the lovely fresh backing fabric. It has a sprig like print which inspired me to use the vine b2b by Anne Bright.

 

You can see it better here.

Sunday Stash - Fabric worm edition

I won a gift certificate in the ALYoF April draw. A double win - a finished project and a prize. Then I had a quick browse whilst I waited for the gift certificate to arrive and ahppy dance - they have the backing that I wanted for my Moda Building Blocks quilt.

My order arrived this week. I had completely forgotten what I'd ordered as well as the backing so it was like Christmas. And it was a good surprise.

 

My stash is sorely lacking in yellows and oranges so I stocked up on the Katy Jones chicken wire print as well as some honeycomb from riley Blake.

 

My Architextures backing by Carolyn Friedlander has gone straight into the cupboard next to my longarm along with the Moda Building Blocks quilt top. I need some more practice with rulers and free motion before attempting this large quilt.

 

 

Some low volume fabric for my stash. To be honest my low volume stash is now bigger than any other pat of my stash, but if you don't buy them when you see them, you end up not finding them when you need them.

 

 

And last but by no means least some Ex Libris by Alison Glass. It does not disappoint in the flesh. I have no idea what I'll use it for, but it will be admired regularly.

 

 

Ad here's one of the panels. There's only just a quarter of an inch on each side of the design which makes cutting the panels apart tricky. I'm thinking some sort of bag perhaps?

Linking to:

Farm Girl Vintage - Canning season and chicken foot

 

This is week 4 of the Farm Girl Vintage Sew along, and the blocks are called canning season and chicken foot. I realised last week that I needed a few more 6" blocks, so I have made two 6" canning blocks of a can of cherries and water melon. Though I think the watermelon looks more like raspberry jam. :)

 

The two bodies of the cans were picked from some FQs that a friend no longer wanted and they go perfectly with the theme of the quilt.

 

I love the Chicken foot block with its spotty background. This fabric came from one of the monthly I want her Stash bundles. The other fabrics are by Lori Holt and Cotton & Steel.

 

And here are the three blocks together.

 

 

And then all of the blocks so far. I like how they're looking together.

 

 

 

 

Cosy blanket - time to tidy up

I have been lazy and not sewn in any ends on this blanket I've been crocheting. I incurred a sports injury on Monday night which my physiotherapist says is a category 1 to 2 tear in my calf muscle. No exercise apart from walking for 4 to 6 weeks. Shame no burpies. I know you want to know what I was doing - we were about 2 minutes into an exercise class and not going for the burn yet and something went awry. Adam thought it would just be a strain, but I  felt it was more and he had a cancellation yesterday afternoon so I jumped at it. Or I would have jumped if I could, just walking down the stairs is a challenge.

Jane gave me permission to put my feet up and crochet the day away so I did. I think I'm about half done, so today it's time to start sewing in those ends. Lucy at Attic24 gives great instructions on how to sew them in which is a boon for novices like me.

 

So at each colour change I'm sewing in at least five ends and it's starting to look much tidier and less like a fringe. I don't want to spend an entire evening just sewing in ends, so I'll crochet a row and then sew in some ends, repeat until finished.

 

Most of my wool came from Black Sheep Wools but they were out of stock of a few colours so I also ordered from Wool Warehouse and I love these giant organza bags that they pack the wool in. So useful to transport your project and protect it.

Siblings Together - June 2015

 

 

I know it's only May, but as some of us are meeting up on 1 June, Jo has been kind enough to send us the instructions for June so that we can hand deliver our blocks. A simple 18" block, which was nice and quick to sew after scouring my stash for suitable fabric that was a large enough piece.

Hooked on crochet

 

 

I thought I'd share my progress on a new project today. I have followed the attic 24 blog since it was recommended to me by Michelle, then Claire bought me a kit for one of her patterns for Christmas. I had a go, but the patterns weren't lining up so I put it aside. Then I won a voucher for Black Sheep Wools and succumbed to some Stylecraft Special DK and got started on my cosy blanket.  Black Sheep Wools didn't have all of the colours I needed so I bought the rest of the wool from Wool Warehouse. I love that the wool comes in lovely big organza bags which are brilliant for storing your projects in. I may have also bought a kit for a second project to take advantage of the free postage.

 

 

All of the wool for my cosy blanket is stored in a basket in order of the stripes. Sad I know, but it makes it easy to grab the next two balls to work on.

 

 

All of my Stylecraft wool is stored in the wardrobe next to my long arm and I have a few random colours for future use or borders.

 

I store the next four colours in the organza bag and return them once used to the basket.  I've now done two stripes of each of the fifteen colours and I'm pleased with my progress. I'm trying to do two stripes every day to make visible progress.

 

 

Farm Girl Friday - Baking day and Butter churn

 

This is week 3 of the Farm Girl Vintage Sew along, and this week's blocks are butter churn and baking day. I thought butter churn would look good as a 12" block and the colours follow the book pretty much.

Love the baking day block. Very retro and I also did a 12" block for this one.

Here they are together so far. I need to make a few more 6" blocks to balance the larger blocks.

Kaffe ST quilt progress

 

When I went to load the quilt on the machine, I found it was smaller than I had expected. Hmm, I hadn't added the final border. Back to the sewing machine. Now it's on the machine and I'm trying out some ruler work. A piano key border and orange peel pattern in the middle. I realise that I need to change the open toed foot to an enclosed foot, but first I have to find it. The quilting isn't perfect and some parts will need to be unpicked as the tension is atrocious, but a charity quilt is perfectly suited for practising on.

 

I've started allocating myself six tasks to do each day and I mark off which days are a win, when all six tasks have been achieved. This week hasn't been full of wins, but making the binding for this quilt was one of today's tasks and it's now done ready for when the quilt is finished.

 

 

Provided byFund-Raising-Ideas-Center.com

 

Quilters are going great guns and I will have three more to add to this total by the end of next week. The labels have arrived so they need to be sewn on.

My small world quilt along - low volume swap

 

I have made a small amount of progress in advance of the start of the sewalong. My hexies are sewn together, but unfortunately they're not required until part 5. I have sent about 8 envelopes of hexies to the UK and USa and I have three more to post tomorrow.

 

 

The quilt requires a yard of mixed low volume fabrics. I started cutting up my scraps and made significant progress. Or so I thought until I worked out we need over 300 1.5" squares. Wow.

You might ask what is low volume fabric. This article on Craftsy describes it as:



"Low-volume fabrics are defined as fabrics that “read” as light fabrics but at the same time have a secondary pattern or design. Just one of these fabrics can be used as the background for an entire quilt, but it’s even more fun to combine many different low-volume fabrics for stunning quilts.
Many fabric collections come with a mix of bold prints along with lighter prints that are perfect low-volume fabrics. Low-volume prints from a single collection can be used, or fabrics from a variety of collections can be combined."

Here are a few that I pulled from my basket of low volume fabrics. Here you'll find text prints too. I have several different white on white fabrics as well as cream on cream. I'm not sure I'd use the numerical fabric on the right hand side. It looks a little bold for me.

 

If like me you don't have a great variety of low volume fabrics for this quilt, I have agreed to organise a swap. You can go to eventbrite to sign up here. Swappers will be sending me up to three bags of ten 1.5" strips at least 18" long. I will swap them out and return them on 1 June when I go to London. Here are the three fabrics I'm planning on using - a cream on cream spot from Bonnie & Camille, a sprigged white on white and gold stars on white.

 

 

Any questions about this swap - just e=-mail me. I know it's a quick deadline, but the sewalong starts very soon.

Siblings Together - Helen's quilt 1

This is the first of three quilts made by Helen (Magpie Cat) and quilted by me. I provided the wadding and backing. My stock of backing is running low so I had to find the best fit that was available.

 

 

The backing is a slightly darker cream than the sashing but works okay for me. It has a small sprig design over the whole backing.

Here's the top - a stunner. Strikingly simple piecing.

 

The quilting is done in a cream thread and an overall meandering butterfly design which picked out the butterfly from the fabric used for the top.